10 Terrorist Attacks That Almost Happened

1. Attempted Assassination of George H.W. Bush

The Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, ordered his troops to invade Kuwait over oil disputes in August 2, 1990 and decline to withdraw. US in a coalition of 34 other countries waged a month-long aerial bombing campaign, followed by ground attacks that forced Iraq from Kuwait.

Though Iraq had been cowed by the defeat, Saddam Hussein and his intelligence service hatched a revenge plan against former US president George H.W. Bush. In April 1993, Kuwait had invited George Bush to show appreciations of the role played by U.S in their liberation an event that Saddam seized to take revenge of defeat two years earlier. The plan was to attack Bush’s motorcade en route to Kuwait University with sophisticated explosives and incase the bombing was thwarted, they had a back up plan; one of them was to wear an explosive and get closer to bush to kill him. The plot was to be executed by more than a dozen agents. However, suspicious Kuwait civilians suspected them and contacted the authorities and the agents were arrested.

Bill Clinton, freshly elected US president was presented with intelligence revealing the plot had been hatched by Iraq intelligence service with some suspects confessing so. Clinton then ordered a cruise missile strike against Iraq intelligence headquarters in early morning destroying the building and killing at least three people. Iraq never again made serious attacks against US outside its boarders.